posted at 8:31 am on May 18, 2013 by Jazz Shaw

The only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with… oh, the heck with it. We now take you to the Lone Star State.

The victim of an armed home invasion in Houston has turned the tables on the brazen intruders after they stuffed him into a closet that turned out to be the place where he stores his gun.

Police say it all started at around 2pm Tuesday when three men broke into a home in the 8200 block of Braeburn Valley Drive and assaulted the resident.

After a brief scuffle, the hapless perpetrators shoved the man into a closet, not knowing that there was a gun in there.

For the benefit of the usual list of detractors, yes… there’s a definite advantage when the criminals turn out to be complete idiots. Or at least really poor planners. But in defense of the system here, it was still three against one and they were armed also. We now return you to our story, already in progress.

When the homeowner thought the burglars had left, he went downstairs, carrying his gun in case the suspects were still around, the Houston Chronicle reported.

On the first floor, the man confronted one of his assailant and the two exchanged gunfire, according to police.

The resident, who shares the house with his parents, escaped unharmed, but the armed suspect was much the worse for wear after being struck in the shoulder and leg.

He fled on foot down the street, but did not get far before he collapsed. His two suspected accomplices took off from the scene in a Chevrolet Tahoe.

The article finishes by going into a brief discussion of the “castle doctrine” in Texas, related to various “stand your ground” laws. I’m not entirely sure why that even needed to come into the coverage, beyond their pointing out that the homeowner will face no charges for shooting the suspect. Even if you wanted to fire up a debate about when and where it’s justified for a law abiding gun owner to open fire on a bad guy, surely the moment you find yourself locked in a closet in your own home by armed intruders is one where any conceivable line has been crossed.

But still, if you have a gun in your home, you’re far more likely to wind up shooting yourself or somebody that… oh, forget it. I give up.

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This is MY Texas! Heres a clue criminals Im in my 50s I have concealed carry and have a sweet little pistol with me at the ready. Think I look innocent and you want to rob me, go ahead. I’ll be the one yelling “surprise!” as I pop a cap in yo azz.

Your concern is duly noted and predictably moronic. If you invasively bring and direct a gun into someone else’s house, that already being a demonstration of the means and the willingness to use deadly force, then you should expect to be ventilated.

they stuffed him in a closet, don’t seem like they were gonna kill him

nonpartisan on May 18, 2013 at 8:48 AM

You know how many cases I’ve read where they shot dead the homeowner before they left? The worse was a 12 year old girl who was home alone sick. She stayed in bed like they told her but before they left they stuck a gun in her mouth and pulled the trigger. Now get lost.

You see these cases where the burglars know someone is at home and knows that the person will be able to identify them. Example, the young woman with the baby in Oklahoma. Two guys broke in looking for drugs. She shot one dead. They were local and she would have easily ID’d them. You really think they were going to leave her alive??

It’s not up to you, or even me to decide whether they ‘deserve’ death. We all, axiomatically, deserve the consequences of our actions, and when someone takes up deadly arms and invades someone else’s home, HE is deciding what he deserves. And it sure isn’t a dinner invitation and a chance to meet your teenage daughter.

Ok folks, there you have it. Nobrain thinks that the victim should interview a burglar before acting. Talk things over with your attacker before you do anything mean to them. Maybe burglars should write up resumes and hand them out to the victims so they can steal whatever they want because they are worse off than the people they are robbing.

what if you know for a fact that the burglar is unarmed, would you kill him?

a burglar could be a father who is unemployed and at his wits end at finding options to provide for his starving family. Not every burglar is a violent, armed psychotic rapist.

nonpartisan on May 18, 2013 at 9:01 AM

You can’t know that for a fact, dimwit. His hands could be the weapons or a shiv or a knife pilfered from a kitchen drawer or the blackjack tucked into his/ her belt… so while you are weeping for some perp you think is starving or unemployed (thanks to Ogabe) the rest of us will be protecting our families from your mentally deficient fantasy land.

And this scenario of a family starving and desperate, what a crock. We are living in Obamanation. Your hero’s economy has more people than ever before getting food stamps and welfare. Most perps aren’t robbing people because they are hungry and their son Tiny Tim needs a crutch. A good percentage of robberies are done for DRUG MONEY you moron.

I don’t ever want to kill a man. But I will if I have to. I’d have a hard time sitting on a jury deciding the death penalty for a criminal who has already been convicted. While he may well deserve it, and while I believe in the death penalty for extremely limited offenses, I pray to never be placed in that position.

You don’t have the experiences many of us do, yet you presume to come here every day to lecture us.

Maybe you should shut up for the next twenty years. Get married, have a family, and find things that are more important to you than politics. We here are political for our life experiences. You, on the other hand, are simply political for its own sake.

Many of us used to be liberal, while you have never been Conservative and have yet to experience life as it can sometimes get. John Lennon once said, “Life is what happens while you’re making other plans.”

it doesn’t state who fired first though, if the homeowner fired first, the burglar could technically claim self-defense for return fire.

Sorry, no. In Texas (and I believe in most other civilized states) you cannot claim self-defense while committing a felony, especially one in which force was used against a homeowner in their own home prior to the exchange of fire. You would be facing a felony murder charge regardless of who shot first, and debarred from using self-defense.

In fact, attempting to claim self-defense under those circumstances would increase your chances of receiving a death penalty in Texas. Your claim that you are able to use violent force in “self-defense” while committing a felony would be evidence that you present a continuing danger to the community — one of the preconditions necessary for a death sentence.

But but nobrain thinks that when you ask the perp if he’s armed and they say no, that you should believe them. After all, someone who breaks into your home would never tell a lie. Why they just came from bible study and that bulge in their pocket is just wadded up kleenex they used after crying about their starving children.

While I agree that burglary is not a capital crime, there are inherent risks in any undertaking. If you work in a coal mine, you may be the victim of a cave-in. If you’re a burglar, you risk being confronted by an armed homeowner and, in Texas at least, that homeowner has the right to use deadly force. If you don’t like the odds, get into a different line of work.

Methinks you’re confusing armed home invasion-hence-kidnapping, possible rape of the family (it has happened you know) and, as happened more than once in these situations–execution.
Did he deserve death? No, but then neither do drunks who drive at 100 MPH, but that’s it happens when you take life-threatening risk by defying God’s moral laws.

Actually, they do. They committed several crimes using the advantage of a gun. And their conduct had absolutely no social utility whatsoever. They wouldn’t be misssed by those whom they’ve harmed and will harm in the future. To the extent they might have “peeps” who’d mourn their loss, those mourners could reflect on what they could–and should–have done to ensure that these scum didn’t travel the wrong path in life.

“Two Congressmen are asking the Treasury Department if it inappropriately scrutinized conservative-owned businesses the same way it targeted Tea Party groups filing for tax-exempt status.

Republicans Mike Kelly (PA-03) and Jim Renacci (OH-16) circulated a letter Thursday requesting Treasury Secretary Jack Lew to release documents detailing the process and methodology the Automotive Task Force used to shut down General Motors dealerships in 2009 during the automotive industry crisis.

Renacci’s Northeast Ohio Chevrolet dealership was closed in 2010 after losing a battle with General Motors. Congress loaned General Motors $50 billion in 2009 after GM declared bankruptcy, which resulted in the federal government owning a majority share of the company. Roughly 2000 dealerships received “wind-down” agreements, and while hundreds were able to survive an exhaustive arbitration process, Renacci-Doraty Chevrolet in Wadsworth did not. Renacci, then a Congressional candidate challenging incumbent John Boccieri, placed the blame squarely on President Obama.

“I jumped into the campaign because of what happened to the car business,” Renacci said in 2010. “This is another example of the devastation of this administration’s massive government intrusion into the private sector.” He went on to describe the government takeover of GM as “the Obama Administration dictating to small-business owners whether they can continue to operate privately owned businesses.”

Mike Kelly has a similar story. He decided to run for Congress when it was announced that Obama’s Automotive Task Force slated Wayland Chevrolet in Butler, Pennsylvania for closure. The dealership was started by Kelly’s father in 1953.

Now that it has been confirmed that the Treasury Department unfairly profiled conservatives around that time, the Congressmen are wondering if that could have been a factor in the selection of certain dealerships for closure.

The IRS scandal “raises serious questions about past decisions made by the [Treasury] Department regarding auto dealership closures that occurred in 2008 and 2009,” reads the letter. “We formally request that the Treasury Department provide all e-mails, phone records, notes, memoranda, reports, and other communications regarding the decision-making process for dealership closures from the Automotive Task Force headed by Car Czars Steve Rattner and Ron Bloom.”

The letter also notes that while the Automotive Task Force claimed to have objectively evaluated each dealership, a Special Inspector General Report found that there was “little or no documentation” that proves objective criteria were used.

“At the heart of this request,” the letter concludes, “is the obligation we have to the American people to ensure that political profiling has not been a systemic issue within this administration.”

it doesn’t state who fired first though, if the homeowner fired first, the burglar could technically claim self-defense for return fire.

nonpartisan on May 18, 2013 at 8:52 AM

No, not according to Texas law. Here we are allowed to defend ourselves and even out property with deadly force. The homeowner had every legal and moral right to kill them from the instant they entered his home.

Also, don’t try to concoct some excuse for them. Armed robbery and hot burglaries are violent crimes that often escalate to rape and murder. This homeowner was assaulted and illegally confined. The type of people who do this are always repeat offenders too, which is why we would all be better off if they had been killed.

Break into a home, you can be shot with no questions asked. It’s even in the PA constitution, which is two centuries old. Yo paraphrases, “The right of the people to keep and bear arms for defense of self and property shall not be questioned.”

But but nobrain thinks that when you ask the perp if he’s armed and they say no, that you should believe them. After all, someone who breaks into your home would never tell a lie. Why they just came from bible study and that bulge in their pocket is just wadded up kleenex they used after crying about their starving children.

BeachBum on May 18, 2013 at 9:22 AM

I’ve had to deal once in my life with a potentially armed robber. Unfortunately, I wasn’t armed in that case. I hope it never happens again, but if it does, I’d much rather be armed. If you’ve never experienced it, it’s pretty damned scary.

The Texas law presumes that the use of force is reasonable and necessary when someone is unlawfully and with force entering or attempting to enter your occupied home, car, or place of business, or when someone is committing or trying to commit a crime against you.

But Texas law, like Florida’s, states that if a person has a right to be present at a location where force is used, has not provoked the person against whom the force is used, and is not engaged in criminal activity at the time the force is used, is not required to retreat before using force to protect themselves.
This means that if we are standing in our front yard, a mall, a grocery store, or any place we have a right to be legally, we are not required by law to retreat but may defend ourselves if attacked.

In Texas, a person can justifiably and potentially use deadly force against another individual if: he or she believes deadly force was necessary at the moment, believes he protected him or herself against attempted deadly force, prevented an act of kidnapping, homicide, rape, aggravated rape, robbery, or aggravated robbery.

it doesn’t state who fired first though, if the homeowner fired first, the burglar could technically claim self-defense for return fire.

nonpartisan on May 18, 2013 at 8:52 AM

Wow, that’s such awesome thinking.

Now all we have to do is let the cop killers know that if they can get the Police to Fire First as they flee the scene of their bank robbery (or Boston Marathon bombing) they can then claim “Self Defense”!

what if you know for a fact that the burglar is unarmed, would you kill him?

nonpartisan on May 18, 2013 at 9:01 AM

Yes. I am a woman, and I would assume he was stronger than I am. If he was wiling to break into my house, I have to assume he’s also willing to rape or kill. Plus, what’s to keep that unarmed burglar from arming himself with one of my Japanese kitchen knives, or with my hammer, once he’s in the house?

That homeowner was confronted by three men who could have easily killed him even without a gun.

The article finishes by going into a brief discussion of the “castle doctrine” in Texas, related to various “stand your ground” laws. I’m not entirely sure why that even needed to come into the coverage,
–Jazz

Because to the libtards that control the entire media, the idea that someone would actually want to defend themselves is inconceivable. So they think it needs further explanation. The lib strategy would be: 1) cower, 2) engage in ‘reasoned dialogue.’

Also, don’t try to concoct some excuse for them. Armed robbery and hot burglaries are violent crimes that often escalate to rape and murder. This homeowner was assaulted and illegally confined. The type of people who do this are always repeat offenders too, which is why we would all be better off if they had been killed.

People like you who excuse criminal violence just enable more of it.

juliesa on May 18, 2013 at 9:43 AM

Well said.

Nonpartisan, it is the people like you in our society that cause more violent crime to happen bcs of your constant support of the victimhood meme.
If a man is desperate to feed his family or provide for them, he doesn’t have to resort to HURTING other people. He can go to the govt for food stamps & welfare payments.
Or a CHURCH.
If he’s robbing people to pay bills, then I have zero sympathy for him. Bcs they don’t send people to debtor’s prison anymore.
Except, I suppose, for your beloved IRS.

It doesn’t ever matter how desperate a person becomes, there has never been an excuse for SEEKING OUT people in their homes & attacking them with guns, or any other weapon.
You, Sir, are nothing but an usurper of Liberty.
Go crawl back in your hole or get some better arguments.
Your moniker is extremely disingenuous.